


Lost and Found

by TheSkyIsALie



Series: Affections of the Underworld [9]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Aged-Up Damian Wayne, Angst, Demon AU, Demon!Damian, Demon!Dick, Demon!Jason, Kidnapping, M/M, Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSkyIsALie/pseuds/TheSkyIsALie
Summary: Tim had always hated thunderstorms - they brought memories of the worst things in their darkness, noise too loud to hear the comforting whispers of the one's that now stood beside him. He should have known better then to attempt waiting this one out, but there was nothing he could do to avoid its doom.





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of plot and then some more plot on top and while there's no real romantic developments in this one I hope you'll be satisfied with what you get instead.

Tim had been watching the storm quietly from the cushioned window seat - the world outside the little pocket reality dark and dull as strong winds blew and heavy rain hammered down. A little over a week had passed since they’d first moved into the old state home in England and Tim had begun to grow uncomfortable, unable to leave as he was.

Dick had been coming and going constantly - disappearing to meet with Damian for hours and on trips to replenish the supplies they kept for Tim. Jason had begun to grow weaker the longer they stayed in one place - the constant use of his powers steadily draining the contract demon of energy, despite his best attempts to conceal it.

Tim had attempted to persuade Jason to lessen the barrier between them and the outside world and reduce the amount of power he was pouring into keeping the younger safe if it was only hurting himself. Jason had paid no attention to the little human’s pleas - instead choosing to expend as little energy as possible elsewhere and so rarely moving from the armchair he had chosen in the mainroom.

With Dick gone and Jason inattentive to his surroundings, Tim had begun to spend his time in the little pocket reality in silence - simply watching the weather pass from his window seat and listening to the echoed ticking of the grandfather clock that sat in the hallway just outside the mainroom.

He had found that the state home could be creepy when nothing was around to keep it alive - as even with Jason in the room, his presence was unfelt in the constant state of almost-asleep the demon usually stayed in. The building creaked and groaned in the rough winds, and sometimes Tim swore he heard footsteps on the staircase he couldn’t get to without leaving Jason’s barrier. The house was dark and scary in a way Tim didn’t want to admit - in a way he had only noticed once he was left alone.

Low thunder rumbled through the dark skies and Tim held his breath as he waited to see if anything would follow the ominous noise. He wasn’t necessarily _scared_ of thunderstorms, but the bright flashes and loud noises reminded him of waking to an empty house in the middle of the night and having no one to seek out for comfort but a lifeless teddy bear and some cold sheets that smelt like the people that should be there with him.

He wasn’t _scared_ of thunderstorms, but he certainly didn’t like them.

The flash of lightning startled Tim - illuminating the vast gardens of the old state home for a split second before everything returned to darkness. Tim held a hand over his racing heart - cursing himself for being so _childish_ as to actually be frightened by a _storm_. He glanced over to Jason’s sleeping form across the room, knowing that all he would have to do was get up from the window seat and sit with the elder - that Jason would be there for him in an _instant_ and would talk to him as the storm passed and distract him from everything he didn’t want to think about.

But no, he couldn’t. Jason needed his rest and Tim shouldn’t wake him over something so _stupid_.

Thunder rumbled again and Tim turned back to the window, counting the seconds and praying that the storm would be short. But when the lightning flashed again, Tim forgot whatever number he had reached - a sudden shiver running down his spine, goosebumps rising on his skin and his blood seeming to freeze despite the hammering of his heart at the sight of the dark figure on the pathway in the gardens.

The figure disappeared into the night rain as the flash of lightning passed, and Tim stayed frozen to his seat. He should run - he should alert Jason - he should be reaching for the knife Damian had given him - he should do _something_ , but instead he couldn’t stop his mind from racing, his body not moving an inch. Maybe he’d imagined it? The gardens were dark and full of silhouettes even when the storm lit them up, but no - Tim knew he was being hunted and he shouldn’t second guess himself.

Thunder was rumbling again and Tim could tell the storm was getting closer without counting the seconds - and then his eyes caught a glimpse of movement opposite to the direction the wind blew in and he was scrambling up from the window seat in the next second.

The golden dagger was sat atop the dresser beside the doorway and Tim made a grab for it as he sprinted passed, nearly dropping the heavy weapon in his haste to leave the room - heading down the hallway in a bid to just _get away_ from the window and whoever was outside.

The old state home was large, but offered few places Tim could hide in that had any more than one exit. He was hardly about to box himself into a corner he could not run from - though with Dick gone and Jason so clearly out of commission if he hadn’t even woken from the noise of Tim’s panic, the little human doubted running would do him much good in the end.

The sound of glass shattering had Tim stopping dead halfway down the hallway that lead to the kitchen, breath quick and hands shaking as he attempted to determine where exactly the noise had come from. It hadn’t been from the main room he had just left - nor had it been the kitchen he was headed towards, but the hallway he was in was windowless and the noise seemed too loud for it to have been from anywhere further than his immediate surroundings.

The chill of the wind outside reached him before Tim could decide which direction he should turn, and then there was a bright, male voice laughing from behind him.

“There ya are!” Tim startled from the pressure suddenly at his back - forcing him a few steps forward and almost tripping over had he not stumbled into the unfamiliar, wooden wall that had not been in front of him a second ago.

His surroundings were brighter than they had been and the muted noise of the storm was silenced. The wave of unpleasant dizziness Tim had begun to associate with demons’ sort of form of _teleportation_ hit him harder than usual with its unexpectedness and then Tim was dropping to his knees with the terrifying realisation that he was no longer anywhere near safety. No longer where Jason and Dick and Damian knew he was and no longer able to get back to them.

He’d been _caught_.

\---

Dick sighed dramatically, though the show was for no one but himself. Damian had disappeared half way through their conversation without a word of warning - and while Dick knew better than to chase after one of the Princes of the Underworld when he clearly didn’t want to be followed, he certainly wasn’t happy about it.

The thing was, Damian had become strangely honest throughout the whole ordeal involving his brothers - telling Dick exactly what was happening truthfully and keeping few things to himself as he usually would. Damian enjoyed playing with his power, keeping secrets until the exact time he had to reveal them and hiding intentions until they needed to be shown. This time, however, was so clearly different for reasons Dick hadn’t quite figured out yet.

Damian was being _honest_ and _helpful_ , despite the promise he still kept of one day collecting Tim’s debt. For the moment, Dick figured they could trust him.

He’d attempted asking Damian about the blade he had gifted to their little human, wondering where exactly the sentiment had come from - why the prince had suddenly decided protecting Timmy should be held above protecting himself. Damian had ignored the questions, however - not even bothering to brush off Dick’s curiosity and simply pretending the incubus had never said anything to begin with, continuing on with his own conversation.

Jason had seemed more concerned about Damian’s gift than Dick had himself, as the elder had reacted with a sort of fearful concern for Tim the moment they had discerned that the blade was indeed Damian’s personal possession. Dick had since been unable to figure out exactly why the contract demon had been so wary of the intentions behind the prince’s gift, though he supposed it was simply something he _couldn’t_ understand with his lack of involvement with souls.

Still, that didn’t stop the incubus from being _curious_. It was his Timmy that was the centre of everything going on, after all, and while it was Jason and Damian that had a better grasp on the exact situation, it was Dick that stood the closest to the little human’s side. It was him that bore the most responsibility to protect him.

Dick startled a little when Damian appeared in front of him, the prince not having given him any warning with his power as to his sudden return. Dick huffed, turning to face the other with a frown and the preparations of a pettish complaint on his tongue - though held his words back as soon as he noticed the unusual, slightly _troubled_ look on Damian’s features.

“What?” he asked instead, a little dumbly. It was far from common for Damian to be affected by anything at all, let alone troubled - and to say Dick was surprised would be an understatement.

“I have lost sight of him.” Damian admitted after a moment with an irritated huff, shrugging his expensive coat from his shoulders and leaving it to drape over the arm of the sofa Dick sat on - adjusting the cufflinks of his suit shirt in a failed attempt to calm himself down a little.

“Who?”

“My brother, you eejit, who else?” the prince snapped with a harsh glare.

“Both of them?” Dick attempted to clarify.

“Of course not both of them, I would never make such a foolish mistake - I have lost one.” he stated with a prideful huff, moving to pace around the sofa behind Dick.

“I feel like you’d be saying the same thing if you hadn’t lost either of them, but here we are.” the incubus mused, leaning forward to rest his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. He had grown used to Damian’s sudden temper and had quickly learnt the difference between true anger and simple irritation long ago - now unbothered by Damian as long as he knew what the prince was thinking.

“This is no time for your sass, Grayson, the little one could have already been found.”

Dick twitched at that, his mind not having quite clicked with the situation until that moment. If Damian had lost track of one of his brothers, it meant they no longer had a way of monitoring where the princes were and what they knew. It was entirely possible Damian’s brother had already worked out who Tim was with, where he was - he could already be there. He could already have _gotten to Tim_.

“We should leave.” Dick decided quickly, standing from his seat and grabbing the jacket he had no real need of - ready to get to Tim as quickly as possible and make sure the little human was _safe_.

“Grayson, calm yourself a moment - there is no use rushing into a situation we have no idea of.” Damian interrupted Dick’s slight panic, sorting through something on the work desk across the room and not bothering to look up at the incubus.

“Should my brother have actually found the little one, you are useless against him and I can only hold so much of a fight without my blade. I can only hope Timothy will manage to protect himself for the time being, but until then we must find another means of retrieving him unharmed without causing any more damage than is already unavoidable.”

“What about Jay?” Dick asked, moving closer to Damian and inspecting the old papers the prince held.

“Todd will currently be far too weak to protect the little one passed the barrier he had already been withholding. I would not expect him to be able to hide Timothy from my brother if their location is already known, let alone actually fight to protect him.”

“So what’re we going to do?” Dick asked. The papers Damian held were in an ancient language he couldn’t remember how to read and had clearly been kept securely through however many hundreds of years they had been around for.

“I am going to use up an ancient resource - and we are going to make a quick recruitment.” Damian replied, snatching Dick’s hand before they both disappeared from the room.

\---

Tim hadn’t exactly been sure what to expect from either of the Princes of Hell were they to actually get their hands on him. Both Jason and Dick’s brief tales of the two had lead him to believe that both were malicious and cared little for human life, quick to jump to violence and greatly enjoyed bringing misery - Tim had expected pain or death or any of the thousands of terrible things he was sure any demon could do. He certainly hadn’t been expecting to grow _bored_.

Tim had kept Damian’s golden dagger tight in his fist since he’d appeared in his new location - a simple, traditionally oriental house somewhere in the Japanese country, if his glances out into the gardens and beyond were any indication. He had no idea if the prince that had captured him had been keeping his distance because Tim held one of the only blades that could actually harm him or because his other brother was not yet present - perhaps he simply hadn’t decided what he wanted to do with Tim prior to capturing him.

Either way, the little human was unwilling to take the chance and relax his grip on the dagger in the slightest. He could neither run nor trust himself enough to fight and actually win - so sitting and waiting for whomever decided to act first was currently his best option.

Damian’s brother looked nothing like Damian did - pale skinned and intense blue eyes as opposed to Damian’s sharp green, with a possibly slightly taller, more muscular frame and more masculine features. Tim had no idea exactly how ‘families’ worked for demons, but there was no way the two were related by human standards, at least. He couldn’t help but wonder what the other brother looked like.

The prince had introduced himself as Jon - though Tim was still unsure whether he should take the name as the demon’s actual identity or whether it was simply an alias used to keep from telling the little human anything useful.

Jon had started with a strong hand around Tim’s throat and a wicked glint in his eyes - drilling Tim with questions the little human had no idea how to answer - peculiar queries like ‘ _what’s ya relationship with Dami?_ ’ and ‘ _why ain’t ya been with him for a while?_ ’ and ‘ _are ya waitin’ for him to come ‘nd find ya? If he’s really that into ya he ain’t been very good at keepin’ ya safe_ ’.

Jon had steadily relented when he’d realised Tim had few answers for him and even fewer breaths to answer with. He’d released his tight grip on the little human’s neck, allowing him to cough and splutter through painful gasps - eyes glassy with the burning of his lungs and the ache of his crushed windpipe. Jon had only laughed when Tim had swiped out at him with the golden dagger, stepping out of reach easily - though Tim had more been hoping for the demon to back off than take the move as an actual attack, anyway.

His second swing had earned him a crushing grip around both his wrists that was from no physical touch, though, and then Tim was being dragged backwards and pinned against the wall by nothing - and there he had stayed as Jon had left the room, the door sliding shut behind him.

Tim had first been left with confusion - he could not move from whatever held him against the wall, but he had still been left with the dagger clutched tightly in his suspended fist. Was he so little of a threat that the prince was completely unconcerned by him weilding a weapon that could harm him? Then he had been hit with the same worrying fear he had felt when he’d first arrived in the room; Remembering he was in enemy territory, bound and defenseless without anyone knowing he was there - they could do anything to him.

But terror could only last so long without a direct stimulant before the human mind grew tired - and after what must have been at least an hour with not a single sound of movement from around the house, Tim had taken to simply watching the clouds pass through the tiny slit of the open exterior door across the room.

He wasn’t entirely sure where Jon could have gone or why the brother’s had even gone through all the trouble of hunting him down if they only intended to leave him bound and alone, anyway. Surely now it would be easy for him to escape should Jason or Dick or Damian show up to take him back - if they were actually going to show up.

Tim had sort of been expecting to be chased after. He didn’t know if Jason had been attacked back at the old state home during the princes’ attempts to get to him and he worried for the contract demon’s safety knowing just how bad a shape Jason had been in before hand. But surely Dick or Damian should know that he’d been taken, even if Jay was unable to act, right? As far as Tim knew, Damian had been keeping tabs on his brothers for over a week, so he should know what was happening.

Unless they had simply decided to leave him. He was worth no more to Damian than what the prince thought he could get from the debt - and to Dick he was sure that as much as the incubus spoke of love, it was more a love for sex and sustenance than a love for Tim himself. It was possible they had finally deemed Tim and all the trouble he brought too much to warrant dealing with any longer and so would be simply leaving him to the mercy of Jon and his other brother.

It would be the smart decision, really.

The interior door sliding open suddenly had Tim startling a little - something in the human’s stomach seeming to sink as Jon stepped back inside the room. The demon’s eyes never left Tim as he closed the door again, and somehow there was something more menacing within his stare than earlier - despite his previous actions.

“I’ve been thinkin’, right?” he began, moving further into the room and sliding down to sit before Tim on the floor, “I know y’ain’t gonna be screamin’ out for Dami anytime soon, ‘nd I wanna see him pissed off when he comes to ya rescue - so, I figured we might as well have a little fun while we wait, yeah?”

Tim felt a cold shiver run down his back as Jon grinned wickedly - he couldn’t shy away from the demon before him, still bound to the wall as he was, but neither did he have any hopes of facing the nasty look in the demon’s eyes head on. He didn’t want to find out what Jon could mean by ‘a little fun’, didn’t want to know what sort of horrors one of the Princes of Hell could cook up in the name of entertainment.

The weighted feeling of dread only increased when instead of moving to act in anyway, Jon instead stayed were he sat - bright gaze never leaving Tim’s form. The little human squirmed, feeling vulnerable and too hot beneath the heavy stare - face becoming increasingly heated and flush and body feeling sluggish and useless.

Jon’s grin grew when Tim’s breath became laboured from whatever pressure was weakening his body and heating him up - he didn’t understand what was happening, why he was suddenly so uncomfortable. He could vaguely put the pieces together that somehow it was Jon’s doing, but his mind was hazy and his vision blurry and Tim couldn’t decide if he was closer to passing out, throwing up or something else entirely.

And then something felt as though it popped inside him, and Tim lurched forward with the sudden pain - though the pressure that still bound his wrists to the wall kept him from going far. Tim was gasping for breath one second and then crumbling to the floor the next - his bindings dissipating suddenly to allow him to fall and curl over himself in a useless attempt to protect his body from a pain that had already been inflicted.

Jon made no noise, and Tim didn’t have the mind to watch the demon as the aching pressure in his body steadily lifted and his mind began to clear, breathing evening out and the pain slowly lessening.

“That ain’t what I wanted.” Jon commented after a moment, sounding a little upset, “What’s wrong with ya?”

Tim peaked up from his curled over position on the floor - his grip on the golden dagger had miraculously not lessened enough to drop the weapon through the entire ordeal, though he had no doubt he simply did not hold the strength to even attempt any sort of attack at the prince in that moment. He breathed out slowly, trying fruitlessly to calm his racing heart.

He had no idea what had just happened, but it had _hurt_ , and while he certainly wanted to know what sort of horrors may have just been inflicted on his body, he had no intentions of asking Jon a single thing.

The demon before him watched Tim for a moment, seemingly contemplating something significant as his eyes bore down on the little human before he was perking up with a smile - distracted from his own thoughts as he turned towards the same doorway he had entered through.

“My brother’s here!” the prince cheered, and from the joy in the demon’s voice and the heavy weight in his own stomach, Tim could tell that Jon was not referring to Damian.

Footsteps were purposefully loud on the hardwood flooring of the hallway outside the closed door, and Tim didn’t shift from his defensive position on the floor as he waited for the door to slide open. He could only hope that the other brother would be at least a little more level headed than this one - would share a few more of Damian’s characteristics than Jon’s and would put an end to his brother’s games one way or another.

The door slid open slowly and Tim lay petrified by the sudden shock of freezing anguish that washed over him. His mind seemed to switch off - only comprehending one thing through the numbing haze of grief and relief and confusion and _pain_. He opened his mouth to speak, lips dry and throat parched and pretty blue eyes never leaving the face of the man stood in the doorway as he hesitantly spoke,

“Kon?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts, predictions - I'm very interested to hear people's reactions.
> 
> Kudos and comments sure will be appreciated!
> 
> Visit me on Tumblr at the-sky-is-a-lie or come and chat on Discord at #7527


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